Digital Cameras vs 35 mm Cameras

How much longer will 35mm cameras stay ahead of digital cameras. Not too much longer if the pace of digital camera development continues at the current pace. The countdown to the digital camera takeover is well advanced.

It may take a little longer for the price of digital cameras to match those of 35mm cameras but as the price gap shrinks the advantages of digital cameras will be well worth the extra. Especially when the very low running costs of digital cameras are taken into consideration.

Still, a few more things need to change:

Firstly the digital camera resolutions need to increase significantly . Currently averaging 3-4 megapixels, this is already adequate for most purposes but still lacks the definition achievable with 35mm film (around 18 megapixels).

To make capturing 18 megapixel images the on-camera storage needs to increase dramatically and your own computer storage will need to be beefed up considerably. A rewritable DVD drive would be about right.

Much more memory would also be needed to manipulate these very large files so add lots more RAM.

Then you will need more processing speed or you will be waiting forever for each small change to your image to take effect.

Finally affordable digital backs that will take standard 35mm lenses will need to become available. These are already available but at many times the price of a standard 35mm SLR back.